Edward Mallinckrodt

Mallinckrodt PLC

Type	Public
Traded as	: MNK S&P 500 Component
Headquarters	United Kingdom
Revenue	US$3.347 billion (2015)
Net income	US$308.2 million (2015)
Number of employees	5,500 (June 2015)
Website	mallinckrodt.com

Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, based in Staines-upon-Thames, England, with its U.S. headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, produces specialty pharmaceutical products, including generic drugs and imaging agents.

Mallinckrodt manufactures and distributes products used in diagnostic procedures and in the treatment of pain and related conditions. This includes the development, manufacture and distribution of specialty pharmaceuticals, active pharmaceutical ingredients, contrast products and radiopharmaceuticals. The company employs 5,500 at 47 locations around the world. Net sales were $2 billion in 2011.

In 1867, the Mallinckrodt brothers, Gustav, Otto and Edward, founded G. Mallinckrodt & Co. in St. Louis, Missouri. The Mallinckrodt family had immigrated from Germany, and Otto and Edward both returned to Germany, the leading chemical powerhouse of the time, for advanced training. Mallinckrodt Chemical Works was incorporated 15 years later. By 1898, the company had established itself as a pharmaceuticals supplier and in 1913 became the first to introduce barium sulfate as a contrast media for x-rays.

In part due to early success in production of radiology agents, and at the behest of renowned surgeon Evarts Graham, Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. assigned one of the company's top chemists to collaborate in developing the first radiographic agent for biliary imaging. A posthumous endowment by Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. on behalf of his father to the Washington University medical school radiology department resulted in the creation of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.

Henry Farr and John Ruhoff, technical managers for Mallinckrodt, Inc. were directed by Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. to develop a chemical process for purifying large quantities of uranium. Uranium purified by Mallinckrodt was used at the University of Chicago Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear chain reaction. Mallinckrodt also contributed uranium to the Manhattan Project, producing fissionables used in the atomic weapons detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From 1942 to 1957 Mallinckrodt purified 50,000 short tons (45,000,000 kg) of uranium products at various locations in and around the city of St. Louis. The waste was secretly dumped on Coldwater Creek and in various St. Louis suburbs, including Berkeley, Hazelwood, Bridgeton, and Weldon Spring with the approval of the federal government, which is now taking financial responsibility for the cleanup. The dumping substantially contaminated Coldwater Creek.